Eight Minutes
by BetterThanCoffee
Summary: The world thinks the avatar is dead, and Aang is starting to believe them. Post-Crossroads of Destiny


"The whole world thinks you're dead!" Sokka exclaimed, throwing his arms wide, as if expecting Aang to react in jubilation.

Aang felt his jaw drop in an almost comical style. He wanted to shout. He wanted to scream. If he wasn't the avatar, he might have broken down in tears, but surrounded by all the men of the Water Tribe and some of their Earth Kingdom friends on the Fire Navy ship, Aang felt that as the avatar, he did not have the right. Clenching his fists, he could feel all of his energy swirling beneath his skin, unable to release itself.

The world thought he was dead, and in the eyes of the Fire Nation, they had won. According to Guru Pathik, Aang had closed off his seventh chakra, forever sealing off the avatar. If he could not act as the avatar, the savior these people so wanted him to be, then wasn't he pretty much dead, already?

When Aang thought about it, how much difference would his current state of existence make? The world already thought he had been dead for one-hundred years. Over that century, the world gave up looking for the newest avatar, gave up looking for hope. They had adapted, learning to fend for themselves in a spiritless world that would no longer protect them.

For a few months after Aang's return, he had given the world hope. Hope that perhaps the spirits had not given up on them. Hope that maybe, just maybe, they could fight against the surge of the Fire Nation. No matter how brief that flicker of light was, it was extinguished. With Aang's supposed termination, status quo was once again achieved. Aang doubted that the world would take long to adjust. To the people of all the nations, there were no more airbenders and no avatar – just a scared little boy who tried to bite off more than he could chew.

Gazing into the mirror in the solitude of his room within the ship, Aang ran a hand through his hair. For as long as he could remember, he ritualistically shaved his head every morning, just after brushing his teeth. It defined who he was. The bright blue arrow glancing over the dome of his head told the world that he was the avatar. That not only was he the avatar, but an airbender first. His culture had been wiped out, and with Aang, there lied the rest of his society and customs, and now he was erasing the last shred of evidence by letting his hair grow over his tattoos.

It had taken days of small needles probing his body, as rivulets of a sick concoction of ink and blood ran down his body. All the pain and the suffering were worth it to know that he had become a master. He was a true airbender. Now the hair on his head broke up the lines and pattern, ironically, right over the chakra that he knowingly locked down and blocked the avatar state with. It was just a reminder of who he used to be.

"Aang?" Katara spoke softly, knocking gently at the door of his room. "Can I come in? You need a healing session."

Aang lay facedown on his bed, his shirt discarded over the side, as Katara ran her healing hands up and down his back. Just a short time ago, and spirits, to Aang, it seemed like only a few hours ago, he would have been blushing bright red and stammering to find himself in this position with Katara. Now, he only sat in a stony silence.

The wound was deep. It had stripped away layers of flesh and muscle. The pain was excruciating, and if it was not for Katara's incredible adeptness at healing, Aang does not think he would have been able to handle it. A lesser man would have died from such a mortal wound. Yet, Aang was still here, alive, but not. Aang knew that once the wound had healed, all there would be left would be a garish scar, completely masking the fact that a beautiful, perfect blue line once ran down its place.

"Zuko and I match, now," Aang muttered offhandedly, with a bitter undertone. He felt Katara's hands stiffen at his back in anger. Suddenly, the water fell away, running down his sides and drenching into his pants and bed sheets. Katara placed her forehead against his shoulder. At first, he thought he had made her angry, but it wasn't until a few hot tears from Katara's eyes dripped down onto his exposed back, that Aang realized his mistake.

"You died," Katara sniffed in a weak voice. Her hands were balled up in fists at Aang's side, clenching and unclenching, as if she was just teetering on the edge of destroying the whole ocean they were floating on with her bending.

"I know. The avatar died and now I just have to be, what, a normal kid?"

"That's not it!" Katara replied fiercely. "You died, Aang. Not just in this crazy scheme Sokka drew up."

Aang gingerly rolled over to face Katara, sitting upright and pulling her up so they could face each other eye to eye.

"After Azula shot you with the lightning, you went down, Aang. Hard. I wasn't…I wasn't sure if I could get to you in time. After I had gotten you out of there, and back on Appa with the rest of the gang, it had been eight minutes. The longest eight minutes of my entire life."

Tears rolled down Katara's tan face, and Aang wanted to reach a hand up to wipe them away. After everyone he had let down, he did not want to intrude on her space in case she too was disappointed in the young monk.

"You weren't breathing. Your heart wasn't beating. You just wouldn't wake up, but your body was still so warm. It was so warm, almost like it was burning up, and I couldn't just give up."

"So what happened?"

Katara scrubbed at her face, wiping away her tears, and threw Aang a wobbly smile. "The spirit water from the North Pole. I used it, and you came back to me. When you woke up in my arms, you have no idea how relieved I was. You were still alive."

Aang rose from the bed, wincing at the pull of his tightening flesh on his back. He limped to the other side of the room to get a modicum of distance.

"But I still am dead, Katara, don't you see! I left the world for one-hundred years. I screwed up. I abandoned everyone. Now I am doing it all over again! Even if the world did know I was alive, what is the point? I can no longer reach the avatar state." Aang's head dropped in defeat. "I failed the world, again."

"You didn't fail the world," Katara spoke in that strong conviction of hers, "and you will return. Right now, it is safer for the world to not know you are alive, but you will return. You will come back, and take down Fire Lord Ozai, with or without the avatar state."

"Do you really believe that?"

Katara grinned at the unsure man in front of her, so far from the boy she had met in the iceberg not that long ago. "I'll always believe in you, Aang."


End file.
